Facebook may be hard at work creating the future of internet connectivity with its high-altitude drones and lasers, but sometimes nothing beats laying a gigantic cable across the bottom of the ocean. That is exactly what Facebook and Microsoft are doing now as part of a newly announced partnership between the two companies.

The plan is to lay a massive cable across the Atlantic Ocean, stretching a distance of over 4,100 miles between Virginia Beach, Virginia and Bilbao, Spain. The new cable, dubbed “Marea,” will be the highest-capacity submarine cable in the Atlantic, boasting speeds of 160 Tbps.

“In order to better serve our customers and provide the type of reliable and low-latency connectivity they deserve, we are continuing to invest in new and innovative ways to continuously upgrade both the Microsoft Cloud and the global Internet infrastructure,” Frank Rey, director of global network acquisition at Microsoft, said in a statement. “This marks an important new step in building the next generation infrastructure of the Internet.”

Microsoft cited a high demand for its online services as the primary motivation behind the project, and the company specifically mentioned the demand for Bing (yeah right), Office 365, Skype, Xbox Live, and Microsoft Azure.

As for Facebook, the social media giant did not comment on its motivation in the new cable project, but given the company’s heavy focus on video content through Facebook Live, as well as its stake in virtual reality through Oculus VR, it is not difficult to see how it could benefit from greater internet speeds across the world.

According to Microsoft, the cable will be operated and managed by Telxius, a subsidiary of Spanish telecom Telefónica SA, and it will connect with additional hubs in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Photo by pobre.ch